Category: Food

Deep and Crisp and Even – 30 January 2016

Posted on by Zogman

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt snowed during the night. When we woke it was bright white sunshine that was coming in the windows. Such a nice difference. Yes, I knew it was going to cloud over and there was the chance that we’d have more snow during the day, but for a while it was sunny.

Had a relaxed start to the day, no need to rush on a Saturday now. Let the workers do the rushing to make the most of their weekend. Us retirees can take our time. Finished the book I was reading “Strange Loyalties” by Wm McIlvanney. It was a bit of struggle finishing it, rather like wading through treacle at times, but good use of language. Full review on Goodreads (3/5 stars).

Luckily we had planned on a bus journey to Glasgow because I didn’t fancy driving anywhere today with blizzards forecast for everywhere in Scotland. As it happened, we didn’t see any blizzards, but there was a bit of snow as we were driven in to the great metropolis that is Glasgow.

This being our anniversary, or the anniversary of the day we met, we went for lunch. Today’s choice was Charcoals. I had Rara Gosht and Scamp had Chicken Dopiaza. They were both lovely – not cheap, but lovely. We wandered round ‘The Toon’ for a while and then came home on the bus.

By the time we got back most of the snow had gone. It was a great day.

Today’s PoD, in fact the only one worth talking about, was taken outside the Apple building which is being ‘modernised’. A nice bit of business acumen there.

One day this weary winter will be gone – 28 January 2016

Posted on by Zogman

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERATitle comes from a Loudon Wainwright song and it sums up my feelings quite succinctly.  Another still life as evidence of the darkness outside from dawn to dusk.  Dusk being about 5 minutes after dawn.  After that, total darkness reigns.

Today we went to 1 Devonshire Gardens for lunch.  It was a retirement present from the Malleys for Sheila.  This was a full dress occasion – suit, shirt and tie.  I even got shaved.  It was worth it.  Food was really excellent.  Service was excellent too, just what you’d expect in a place like this.  Because we knew that “drink would be taken”, we went on the bus, in fact buses because we got the bus from the centre of town to the restaurant.  That was a first for us, travelling IN Glasgow by bus, but it was a necessity today because it was a 20 minute walk from the subway station and it was raining.

After our delicious lunch we went back in to the centre of town to pick up my beautiful artwork from Sunday’s class in Cass Art.  It’s still sitting in  the bag until I have the courage to look at it again.  I’m only glad that I didn’t buy the paint they were pushing at the class.

Now we are getting ready to batten down the hatches before Storm Gertrude arrives with its 80mph wind gusts.

A grey day, lemonade scones and a still life – 26 January 2016

Posted on by Zogman

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnother uninteresting day with nothing much to recommend it.  Windy and wet with occasional chances for the sun to burst through for a few minutes.  Driving rain from the south for a change.  It washes the windows if nothing else.  Every time the I decided to take a walk and get some photos in the bright spells, the rain would start again.  Scamp and I went to the gym instead and did a bit of exercising, but as she had a lunch appointment, we didn’t get a chance for a swim.

Did a bit of painting, but left it unfinished again.  Made some lemonade scones.  Simple recipe:

  • 2 cups self-raising flour
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 150 ml double cream
  • 150 ml lemonade

Makes roughly 12 scones and they are as light as a feather.  Even Scamp agrees, it must be so.

Today’s photo is physalis 1 .  It was produced using a combination of different technologies.  The camera was mounted on a tripod, an old Bilora that I bought second hand for a couple of quid in a house clearing about forty years ago.  The other technology was the brand new Pixel remote trigger.  Old and new technologies managed to produce a good image when used together.  Hoping for good weather tomorrow, but more snow forecast.  We’ll see.

 

  1. Just keep repeating “Physalis, Physalis, Physalis”.  Then when someone asks you what they are, you don’t blurt out “SYPHILIS!” as someone I was sitting next to at a restaurant did.  A conversation stopper. ↩

A grey day – 20 January 2016

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combo 2b

Grey start to the day with mist and the inevitible rain. We had hoped to go out somewhere scenic today as we did last week, but it wasn’t looking like a scenic kind of day. Finally settled on going to the Forge Market in Glasgow. Not very scenic, but it does have a Clarks shoe shop and there are few of them in the countryside. After trying this and that, leather and suede, black and brown, boots and shoes – you get the message, I settled on a pair of brown leather shoes and almost as my debit card was cooling in my wallet changed my mind. That’s about par for the course for me. I’ve got 28 days to cool my heels, or my feet to be more precise, before I have to accept or reject the shoes.

When we came out we tried to get a table at Cotton House, but were too late. They closed at 2.00 and it was just about 1.00 at the time. We were in Glasgow and they were in Bonnybridge – a bridge too far.

After getting lost a couple of times trying to get back on the motorway, Scamp suggested we go to The Fort in Easterhouse. I always did think they needed a fort in Easterhouse, but not one with high fashion shops, just a portcullis and a drawbridge. Had lunch at Wagamama. I had my usual of Ramen, Pork Ramen to be precise and Scamp had Teriyaki Chicken which was quite nice.

Walked along to Hobby Craft after lunch and got myself a daylight light bulb. Fred gave me one a month or so ago and although it was quite good, it was a bit weak and not as blue as daylight should be. The one I got today is much better. It’s a long life spiral bulb 20W which equates to 95W and has a mired value of 6500k which sounds like a perfect daylight level. I’ll give it a try over the next few days. Maybe it would disperse the grey light we are living with at the moment.

An improvement at last – 12 January 2016

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IMG_3015- flickr--12The day started with the usual grim wet weather and much darker than it should be even at this time of year. However, throughout the day the clouds lifted and lightened. By four o’ clock we had a lovely sunset. The first this year and the best for a long time before that. That means there will be clear skies tonight and the inevitible drop in temperatures. Snow forecast for dinner time tomorrow. Sounds like fun, but more seasonally appropriate for January.

So what did we get up to today? After what has now become out late we went to Westerwood. Scamp to the gym and me for a swim. After that Scamp had a hairdresser’s appointment and I was preparing for dinner which was to be chicken curry made with a base of curry paste. It was then I realised we didn’t have enough milk and when I went to get it, took a short diversion to grab a shot of the sunset. Smart things smart phones. I thought the curry turned out really well, although the sauce was a bit thick. Scamp thought it was too salty. We both agreed that the flatbreads were excellent.

Hoping for some (whisper it!) sun tomorrow. It’s forecast, but we’ll have to wait and see if the weather fairies are telling the truth or not.

Grey – 9 January 2016

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IMG_3005-Edit- flickr--9I am thoroughly fed up with this grey weather. It’s a bit like watching films of pre-war life. Everything is in black and white with shades of grey. It must have been hellish living in those times when there was no colour. The earliest I can remember is growing up in the mid to late ’50s and most things then were in shades of grey too. I think it was around the mid ’60s that the world started to have colour injected into it. Even today in the 21st century we don’t have all that much colour here in Scotland. I didn’t realise this until a couple of years ago when we went to Trinidad and then Tobago. They’ve got colour, real colour. Seas that are blue, not grey. Skies that are blue, not grey. Sand that’s white and yellow, not grey. Are you getting the picture here? We do a good grey in Scotland and today we were overdosing in it. Dull.

We had hoped to go to the Cotton Club for lunch, but the earliest table they could give us was 4pm which was a bit late for lunch, but it gives you an idea just how popular this place is. Our second choice was Vecchia Bologna and that was where we ate this afternoon. Pea and pancetta soup to start and then Scamp had her usual spaghetti dello chef and I had polpette with vegetables (no pasta!). The lunch was as good as it ever is in this restaurant. Strangely it was not at all busy, but we were told that it was very busy in the evening which I could believe.

That was the brightener of the day. By the time we left Bridge of Allan, the grey that had lifted slightly as we had our lunch had returned. When we got nearer home, the Cumbernauld Cloud had descended in an attempt to blur out the ugliness that is Cumbersheugh.

I’d seen an article about 3D printing a lego ‘selfie’ in the Telegraph on-line and wondered if I could replicate it at least in 2D. It didn’t take long with Potatoshop to create a little Mini MeMan. In Colour!

A new year, a new curry shop – 2 January 2016

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combo bAnother late rise today.  This is becoming a habit.  I’d say we were missing the best part of the day, but that wouldn’t be correct.  The light level this morning when we woke was a definite ISO 10000 and that would have been with f1.8 @ 1/30th (that means really, really dull to non-photogs).  Tonight’s big film was The Dark Knight.  We can beat that.  We have The Dark Day … every day.  Enough of this repartee.

Just to get out of the house, we decided on a trip to Stirling … for a curry.  Rather than go to what had been out favourite curry shop, Mr Singh’s, I thought it would be a good idea to try out a new one, well, new to us.  I didn’t know what it was called, but I knew where it was.  It turned out to be the ‘Spice Garden’ and it was good, very good.  The only let down was that their Irn Bru came from a bar nozzle with not nearly enough gas.  I can forgive that if the food is good, and it was.  We’ll be back.

On the way back, I wanted to get a POD.  I intended it to be Stirling Castle, but from the standard tourist viewpoint, the view was not as commanding as I hoped it would be.  Well, what do you expect from the Council created parking place.  I turned 180º and liked the view up the carse.  A ‘carse’, which my spellchecker thinks is a the plural of ‘car’ is “low-lying land beside a river” and the Carse of Stirling can be beautiful on a good day.  Today wasn’t beautiful, but the carse was doing it’s level best, so I took its photo.  Then I grabbed my tripod and walked across to see if Stirling Castle looked any better from the other side of the road.  It didn’t, but the mound at the old cemetery did look good and there were lots of people happily standing on it to make it look quite dramatic.  I imagine they thought they looked dramatic too.  I took a few shots just to make them think they were dramatic and important.

When I got home, the carse photo was easy to process.  The dramatic rock took a little longer.  Because the shots were taken with the same focal length, aperture and shutter settings, it was easy to sandwich two of them in Potatoshop with the empty rock on top and the dramatic person beneath.  Then all I did was change the opacity of the top shot to allow the ‘ghost’ underneath to show through.  Simple!  I’ll do the Stirling Castle shot another day.  I’ve just remembered where to take it from and it’s’ not the Council approved tourist place either.  Well, it wouldn’t be, would it?

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day – 1 January 2016

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combo bA late start after a late night yesterday.  Typical of New Year’s Day.

Kippers for lunch that kept reminding me of their presence all day after that, despite a couple of cups of peppermint tea.

Went for a walk round St Mo’s with Scamp. Tried to feed the ducks, but it was the gulls and the swans that got most of it. I’m not sure Scamp enjoyed the walk, but she didn’t complain too much.

After the walk, I made Carrot and Cardamom soup from my new Nigel Slater book, thanks Hazy and ND’A. Then made bread for dinner tonight. Both of them were very tasty. Steak for dinner with brussels, cauliflower and roast potatoes. For Scamp’s dinner, substitute salmon for the steak. Coffee afterwards was the Christmas coffee blend Jic and Sim brought me. Very nice, better in my opinion than the Guatemalan, although I will of course have to compare them again in the next few days. Thanks to you two too. So, it was a family New Year’s meal, with everyone represented. Just as it should be.

Rain – 30 December 2015

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combo bUp at 6.00am to see Jic and Sim on their way back down south through the wind and rain that was with us all night last night. After they left, we went back to bed for another snooze for an hour or three before heading off to Falkirk to fight our way through the supermarket to get enough food to see us through the next two days.

On the drive home I stopped at Underwood Lock on the Forth and Clyde Canal to get some photos. Thankfully the rain had eased a bit and I got two of the shots I had planned. Then I saw a couple walking their dog and grabbed that shot too. I imagine there are a lot of possible shots in the old burned out restaurant, but as the roof has fallen in and the entire site is enclosed behind heavy duty fencing. The fencing doesn’t really bother me, but the thought of the roof falling in on me does, so I think I’ll take more shots, but from the outside only.

That was it for the day. The light had gone, and so had we. We went home.

Christmas Eve Eve – 23 December 2015

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAToday we went to try out the new gym.  We were both impressed with the new setup.  Lots of new machines, some of them a bit more video game than serious training devices.  All very shiny and nice to see screens that could display a tv picture without it looking as if it was being viewed through a snow storm.  Time will tell how well they last.  Swimming was out because the pool was slightly oversubscribed, but the sauna, the steam room and the jacuzzi were very welcome.

Went for lunch at Milano.  By the look of the carpark, I thought we wouldn’t have a hope of getting a table, but we did.  Maybe because we only needed a table for two.  It was quite busy with lots of Christmas parties.

After we left, we went to Muirhead hoping to get a steak for my Christmas dinner, but the queue outside the butcher’s meant it would be a long wait just to get inside and then another queue inside the shop.  No, there are limits to what I’ll put up with for my dinner.  I’d rather have a veggie Christmas dinner than wait in a chilly queue for some meat.  As it was, we went to Tesco and I have a nice bit of steak for my Christmas dinner.  It may not be as good as the butcher’s steaks, but then again I didn’t have to queue either.

I wrote a couple of cards for Ivan and for Peter H when we came home and walked over to Condorrat and just managed to catch the post.  Got a few photos of cars on the M80 some time exposures and some with as fast a shutter speed as I could manage with the light level available.  Blended them in Potatoshop and that will have to do as POD for today.